But Calvin Hated Baptists! ***Theology From a Golf Cart***

In the same way that I would call myself an Amillennialist, a partial Preterist, a Baptist, I say

I'm also a Calvinist because that helps to understand what I believe about salvation and predestination and the work of God in bringing about the regeneration and conversion of a person's heart.

Hey guys, I'm Pete Foskey and this is Theology From a Golf Cart. Now, why am

I doing Theology From a Golf Cart? Well, when I was a kid, anytime my dad wanted to have a serious conversation or a heart to heart, he would take me on a ride in his truck.

I used to spend hours in my dad's truck just talking to him. I love those rides. And so these are sort of reminiscent of that, talking about serious things and I'm bringing you guys along for the ride.

And today I'm going to talk about what it means to be a Calvinistic Baptist. I've asked that question often.

People will say, well, wait a minute, how can you be a Calvinist and a Baptist? Because Calvin held to different views than you hold to on the subject of baptism specifically.

And that's true. He did. Calvin would have absolutely repudiated the views that I hold on baptism.

And if you were to go back and put me into Geneva during the time where Calvin lived, I would probably not fare too well because he would not have agreed with many of the things that I believe and teach.

So why do I call myself a Calvinist and what is Calvinism? So that's what we're going to talk about.

But I want to say the reason for this video is because I got a request in the comments of my videos to do the five points of Calvinism.

And it was actually suggested that I would do each of the five points, one for a different golf cart ride.

So it would end up being five golf cart videos. And that's a lot to produce. That's a lot to do.

And so I want to know if that's something that you're interested in. So I'm going to do today's video as sort of a test run.

I'm asking you the question, is this something you want me to talk more about? Is this something you're interested in hearing me talk about?

And is it something that you want me to address? Do you want me to give the five points of Calvinism on five golf cart rides?

And these are usually short 15 to 20 minute videos. But today I'm just going to talk about how am

I a Baptist and a Calvinist? Knowing that Calvin had no love for credo baptism or the idea that the baptism is for those who confess faith in Christ alone.

How can I call myself a Calvinist? Well, the word Calvinist as I am using it is actually theological shorthand for a set of propositional beliefs on the doctrine of salvation or what is typically known as soteriology.

So people say, are you a Calvinist? I say, well, in regard to my soteriology, yes, I hold to the doctrines that are typically referred to as Calvinistic.

And sometimes they are given the acronym TULIP. And so the

TULIP stands for total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints.

And I do affirm all five points of the TULIP. I am what is known as a five -point

Calvinist. But what has to be understood right off the bat is that Calvin himself would not have understood the term five -point

Calvinist. That would not have made sense in Geneva in his lifetime. That wouldn't even have made sense to the first few generations that came after him.

So when we talk about the TULIP, we're talking about a relatively recent historical development in theological shorthand.

And that's all this is. It really is just an opportunity to take very serious and very deep concepts and put them into simple terms.

And where that becomes a problem sometimes is when you try to simplify deep theological truths, those who disagree with them can often take the simplifications and use them in their favor.

So we have to be careful when we're simplifying theology not to simplify it to the point where it's easily misunderstood.

And this is the first thing I wanna say about the TULIP. I do hold to the five points of Calvinism. I do hold to the

T -U -L -I -P. But I think that the five points of Calvinism are really unfortunately named.

Many people have pointed this out. I'm not the first person to point this out. R .C. Sproul talks about this in his book,

Chosen by God, that the phrase total depravity is probably just not a good way of describing what we're trying to say.

Because when we think of something that's totally depraved, we think of something that is just absolutely and utterly depraved.

But that's not what total depravity means. It refers to the whole man being affected by sin, not that we are as sinful as we could be.

And that's the difference where I would usually say the difference between total depravity and utter depravity. So R .C.

Sproul said he prefers the term radical fallenness, but then it becomes RULIP and the

TULIP falls apart. So that's part of the issue. But the other side of it is limited atonement.

That one is another one that really is unfortunately named because when anytime people hear, well, you're limiting the atonement, they think that we're limiting the power of what

Jesus did on the cross. And it has nothing to do with limiting the power. In fact, we believe the power of the cross is that Christ can save anyone to the uttermost, absolutely, that there's no limitation in his ability to save, but that the people for which he died were those who are the elect or those who are believers, which we believe are the same two groups.

Believers are the elect and the elect are those who believe. So we talk about limiting not the power of the atonement, but the scope of who the atonement was made for.

And again, if you want me to do the five points of Calvinism, I'll go through the scripture verses that convince me of these things, why

I hold to these particular doctrines. Just let me know in the comments if that's something that you want me to do. But in the meantime, as we're just going through this today,

I'm again talking about how I can do this and be a Baptist because again, people say, how can you be a

Calvinist and be a Baptist? Well, it's important to recognize that historically there have been many

Baptists who held to a Calvinistic soteriology. In fact, the history of the

Baptists early in their history, particularly the 17th century

Baptists were normally designated by one of two markers.

They were either referred to as general Baptists or particular Baptists. And the general

Baptists were those who held to a general view of the atonement, meaning that Christ died for all men.

That again is denying limited atonement. And then there's the particular view, and this is the phrase

I prefer to limited atonement. I prefer the phrase particular redemption, that Christ died not universally for all men, but in particularly for believers, for the elect.

And so that phrase particular atonement attaches itself to Baptists and they become known as the particular

Baptists. So if you look at the confession that our church holds to, which is the First London Confession, it was written in 1644, edited in 1646.

We hold the 1646 edition. It's the one we give to all of our church members. It's the one we use as a teaching tool in our church.

That is, they were particular Baptists. And then later came the much more popular, much more in -depth

Second London Confession, and that one is typically referred to as the 1689

Baptist Confession. And typically, if you go to a church that identifies itself as a reformed

Baptist church, that's the document they're going to hold to, the document that is known as the 1689

London Baptist Confession. Or if you ever see 2LBF, that's the Second London Baptist Confession.

And so that is how you can be Baptist and Calvinist.

You're holding to a Calvinistic soteriology, but you're differing on the question of who is a proper candidate for baptism.

And this does go back to our understanding of things like the covenants, who are members of the covenant, and I've done debates on that and other things.

I don't really want to get into all of that on this ride, but ultimately, when I say I'm a

Calvinist, and typically when Baptists say that they're Calvinists, what they're saying is they're saying that they hold to the five points of Calvinism.

And sometimes we simply refer to them as the doctrines of grace. The doctrines of grace is just another way of identifying those five historical doctrines.

Now, why are there five? Why these particular five? This is another important question that people will ask, and it is something that is an interesting thing historically because when we go back into the history of these doctrines and what makes them controversial, we actually find that they have been controversial for a long time.

I mean, Calvin was not without controversy in his own life, but one of the people who made a tremendous impact as far as opposing

Calvin on these doctrines was a man by the name of Jacobus Arminius, or sometimes known as James Arminius, was a student of Theodore Beza.

Theodore Beza was the man who came after Calvin, and he was

Calvin's associate, and he taught after Calvin's death, and so Arminius was a student, and Arminius disagreed with Calvin on the doctrines of predestination and election, and he held to certain views about free will and human ability and conditional election and universal atonement.

There arose a following of Arminius known as the Remonstrants, and the

Remonstrant basically is another way of saying the protesters or those who are opposing something similar to how we might think of Protestants, but of course there was already a group called the

Protestants, so the Remonstrants were the followers of Jacobus Arminius, and they outlined their teachings in five specific points, and in 1610, there were the,

I believe it was called the Articles of the Remonstrants, but they were basically their teachings, and this was what brought about what became known as the

Synod of Dort, which was held in a place called Dorcek, but it's just shortened to Dort, and at the

Synod of Dort, they took up, the council took up the arguments of the

Remonstrants, and they disagreed with them, obviously, because the

Synod was, of course, Calvinistic in their theology, so they did disagree. It was certain that they were going to, they disagreed with their arguments because they held to a different theological perspective.

They heard their arguments, they disagreed with them, and they responded to them with what became known as the

Canons of Dort, and those Canons of Dort were responding to the teachings of the

Remonstrants, and the way that the history goes is that basically the five points of Calvinism are the distillation of the

Canons of Dort, but I wanna say this about that. Again, anytime you try to distill or simplify something to such a degree as you're looking at just basically five phrases, a lot can be lost in that, and so if you really want to know

Calvinistic soteriology, if you really wanna know more about what

Calvinism teaches, it goes, as far as in regard to the

Doctrine of Salvation, it really does help to go beyond just the

Tula, and in fact, I would recommend reading the Canons of Dort. They're very pastoral, they explain a great deal about what the issues were and the points they were trying to put out, but again, those are the things that I would affirm.

I would affirm much of what the Canons of Dort had to say. I would affirm much of the things that Calvin had to say.

There are certainly many things we would disagree with, particularly on the area of covenants and particularly on the issue of who belongs in the

New Covenant, who is a member of the New Covenant, and who do we baptize as part of the

New Covenant. All those things would be things we would disagree on, and again, I realize that the

Reformers, many of them were adamantly opposed to the view that I hold on baptism.

I get that, but I can put these men in their historical context. I can still appreciate the good that these men said and the good that these men did without having to force them into my context and make them believe and understand everything that I believe and understand.

This is why I can hold someone like Luther in high esteem, because Luther and I would disagree on many things.

His view of the table and my view of the table are much different, and he would view my position on the table as being a heretical view, and I understand that, but at the same time,

I can look at him and I can say, hey, I'm very thankful for the fights that he fought, for the things that he did, for the good that he was able to do, and I can look at the things

I disagree with and say, hey, I understand we disagree. I disagree with my Lutheran brothers today. I'm friends with many

Lutheran pastors, particularly Hans Feeney, a man I really respect and look up to, but sometimes he says things that I go, ooh,

I just absolutely disagree with that, but that's okay. I'm not saying he's not a brother in Christ, and I think he would say that I'm a brother in Christ, but on these things, we disagree, and we disagree very seriously about them.

So if you wanna know why I call myself a Calvinist, or why I would identify as a

Calvinist, it's because I hold to the five points of Calvinism, not because I believe everything Calvin taught.

Also, and one additional thing, some people say, well, why even use that term at all? Why use the term Calvinism?

Why not just say you believe in the Bible, you believe in biblical Christianity? Well, that's certainly my first and foremost allegiance is to Scripture.

That's absolutely without any question or controversy. My allegiance is first and foremost to what says the

Word of God. But at the same time, I think it's helpful, especially when you're identifying sort of where you stand theologically.

If I meet somebody and they tell me, hey, you know, I'm a Wesleyan, okay, well, that helps me understand at least some of your theological background, and it allows me to at least step over some of the hurdles of questions that I may have had in the beginning and just getting to know who you are and what you hold to theologically.

I think that theological identifiers are helpful. Sometimes I think that they can be a bad thing.

I think that sometimes if we hold our theological identifiers as points of pride, then that's not a good thing.

So people who walk around with their chest, you know, thumping their chest to say, you know, I'm a Calvinist in that way,

I think that's bad. And I think sometimes people think that's what I'm doing when I put You're Calvinist on my podcast or I put

You're Calvinist on Twitter. I'm not, I'm just simply, I'm aligning myself with a certain set of theological propositions.

And again, they're shorthand, they're simple, but they have a robust history, and I'm putting myself in that category and I'm saying this is who

I am. So if you have any questions about this, I'm happy to answer them. And if you want to engage on this subject,

I'm happy to engage with you because I've told you what my position is on this. In the same way that I would call myself an amillennialist, in the same way, in that regards, specifically an end times view, in the same way that I would call myself a partial preterist, which is a specific end times and historical view, in the same way that I would call myself a

Baptist, which refers to how I understand not only who is a right candidate for baptism, but also regarding how

I understand the structure and polity of the church, I say I'm also a Calvinist because that helps to understand what

I believe about things like salvation and predestination and the work of God in bringing about the regeneration and conversion of a person's heart.

So that's why I say I'm a Calvinistic Baptist or I'm a Baptist Calvinist, whatever you want to call me.

I just wanted to answer basically, I wanted to start the conversation with that. Now, again,

I'm gonna ask you, and I think I've said this once or twice already, so this may be the third time in this video. Are you interested in hearing me explain the five points of Calvinism as I understand them and give biblical references for why

I would hold to these positions? If so, it's gonna be an undertaking. It's gonna take several weeks for me to get through all of those videos because I only do one golf cart video a week.

If I did that, I might do two at a time just to get through the five points. But if you're interested in me doing this, please let me know in the comments because I don't wanna do videos that y 'all are not interested in and you guys are the audience that I'm hoping will find value in these videos.

So if that's something you think that you would find value in, please let me know in the comments. All right, guys,

I hope you enjoyed this episode of Theology from a Golf Cart. And if you did, please consider hitting the subscribe button.

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All right, guys, I will see you on my next ride. Hi, my name's

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